People usually carry with them a wallet containing a driver license. A typical driver license provides the name, the date of birth, the address, the signature, and the license number of the driver. Some states use the social security number as the driver license number. Additionally, the wallet can contain money, checks, and/or one or more types of payment cards. The payment cards may be charge cards, debit cards, check cards, and merchant cards specific to a merchant. Typically, these payment cards include the customer name, card number, expiration date and a magnetic strip with the same information. Most payment cards also require a specimen of the signature of the person on the back of the payment card. The wallet may also contain other items that contain personal data, such as sales receipts, telephone numbers of friends or other information.
If the wallet is lost, information of the person, including the name, address, driver license number, signature, payment card numbers and their expiration data may fall in the wrong hands and is subject to abuse such as misuse of the identity information, identity theft, fraudulent use of the payment cards and so on.
Alternately, when the person uses one of the payment cards for a payment transaction, the payment card is physically provided to the employee of the merchant to use the payment card to process a payment transaction and generate a paper transaction slip for the customer to sign. The paper transaction slip contains customer name, card number, expiration date and customer signature. If the customer copy of card transaction slip is carelessly discarded, it may fall in the wrong hand, raising the possibility of misuse of the data and identity theft.
Still alternately, when a person uses a check to make a payment to another, the check can disclose personal information of the person including the name, address, checking account number and the bank where the checking account is maintained.
Further, when a person pays a merchant for a purchase, via telephone, the person again must divulge to the employee of the merchant, their name, address and card number. Thus, the customer has to reveal personal information to the employee of the merchant in the course of the remote payment. Unfortunately, the employee of the merchant employee may be a dishonest person that misuses the information or an imposter.
There are many other ways where a person's personal information may be compromised. For example, the person can be careless in discarding transaction receipts and other personal data. Alternately, a sophisticated thief using guise and deception may be successful in stealing personal data information.
In light of the above, there is a need for an apparatus and method that enhances identity security and facilitates payment without providing information from payment cards, or other personal data. Further, there is a need for an apparatus and method for reducing the likelihood of theft of personal data and/or the misuse of personal data.